I'll Never Let Go
by Prosper-the-XVIII
Summary: BradMora one-shot. Her leg in plaster and her ego in tatters, all she could do was let him love her and think back to the day of the fall...


**Random pre-move fic idea. BradMora; so fluffy you might die :P**

* * *

All he could do was watch silently with his lips parted in a scream refusing to leave his body as the ground beneath her shuddered and eventually gave. Her metallic armoured hand gripped the edge of the abyss just as his own grasped her wrist, clinging to her for dear life. Was this sudden earthquake-reminiscent occurrence programmed in? No, he didn't think so. if it wasn't programmed...oh, for the love of mod, this was bad. If it wasn't programmed and she fell, she would almost inevitably be injured. Possibly irreparably. Maybe fatally. If it wasn't programmed, and she fell, she could die. And she wouldn't respawn. And the last thing that he was going to do right now was watch his dynamite gal slip down to her end.

"Tammy? Tammy, promise me this, don't let go!"  
"I won't, Brad, you know I wouldn't," she forced on a brave face as she attempted to haul herself back over the edge to her fiance, the fingertips tearing from her armour and both his and her arm muscles pulling and threatening to give out completely. He watched her face contort as she looked down. She gulped. It was a long drop; that much could be said. But she could see the bottom. There were no cy-bugs - she would be prepared to fling herself a thousand feet down as long as her landing wouldn't involve those filthy creatures - and it wouldn't kill her. But she was terrified of heights. She was scared by what could go wrong.

He watched her face screw up even more as she looked down, her usually pallored complexion turning somewhat green as she did so. A short, gaspy scream escaped her lips as the hand on the rock slipped down completely. leaving her hanging only to him. "Tammy? Are you okay?!"  
"Fine now, but dammit, Brad, you're gonna dislocate my shoulder sooner than anything else! Just let go! It aint that big a drop!"  
"The last time you said that to me I had my arm in a sling for about two months," he quipped. But the pain in her cobalt eyes was impossible to ignore. "Tam, just listen to me! I've got-" As he said that, he reeled up and almost screamed like a two-year old girl as all but two of her fingers slipped out of his grasp. He wanted to try to grab on again, but that would mean having to let go of her.  
"Brad, you're hurting me!" The tears that he could see in her eyes through her hair - which pretty much looked like an overgrown version of her old standard Space Marines undercut - made his heart hurt. "Come get me once I hit the ground."

And with that, she let herself fall...

* * *

She heard a crack. Squinting in the darkness, she strained her eyes to find out what on earth she'd actually done to herself by way of injury. She gasped.

Her foot was embedded in the ground, still attached, but she was lying behind it, her shin twisted and flattened into a splayed V-shape, making her feel sick.

That was when wave after wave of agony shook her, almost driving the young sergeant to tears. She cringed, rolling into a ball.

"Brad? Help me!"

* * *

"Tammy? Are you okay?" The delay in her response made him fear the worst straight off. But...  
"I'm okay..." the pain in her Illinoisan accent was impossible to shrug she saw the stupidity in her answer sooner than he did. "Okay, not okay, but...Dammit, Brad, help me!"  
"Tam, I'll go get help as soon as I can! Where do you hurt?"  
"Everywhere..." she was sobbing now. "Brad...I'm trying...I can't stand...I think my leg's busted..."

He had to help her. And fast.

* * *

"Thank mod..." she eventually felt his hands around her neck after what felt like hours. "Thank mod you're here...Damn, it hurts so bad!" She pressed her head against his shoulder as he stooped to her level. "Just thinkin' that a few hours ago I was threatening to vomit down Markowski's back and tormenting Kohut about his hair..."  
"I know, I keep telling you that these things only have to go wrong once for you to get hurt, but do you listen?"  
"Devil-may-care's in my programming, I can't help it. Brad, you're meant to be a doc, why do I feel like a steamroller's gone over my leg?"  
He gently eased the broken bones in her leg this way and that, prodding her injury gently with his fingertips, assessing the full extent of her injuries in the blackness. "Not sure, but I think that you've fractured your tibia and fibula, and it might be a compound, not sure-"  
"In English, laserbrain..." she sighed, though under his touch she was still tense and sweating from her pain and his cack-handed diagnosis.  
"You've broken both of the bones in your lower leg and it feels like the shattered ends have pushed into and through your skin, which might be why it hurts so much. It's at a really awkward angle, so there's no wonder you've been so uncomfortable."  
"Thank you..." she sighed gently before she let her eyes flutter closed and a calm sleep absorbed her...

* * *

She took a tentative step on her crutches, then fell over, more out of panic than lack of balance. If there was one thing that she didn't do well, it was standing up or walking - well, limping - on broken or injured legs. The incident in the far-flung corner of Hero's Duty had thrown her, but she was healing, and though her leg was in plaster and her ego in tatters, she was more or less okay.

Strong hands hauled her up from her Bambi-like sprawl on the ground, pulling her to her feet - foot - again. "Tami, keep trying."  
"What if I fall again?" She sounded pathetic, but her pride probably couldn't be hurt any more.  
"Well, I'll catch you. I couldn't the first time. But I will now. I promise."  
"I love you," she leaned up and kissed him softly on the cheek. He really did give her the honeyglows something awful...

-FIN-


End file.
